CSTO peacekeeping troops reach Kazakhstan

ALMATY: The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has sent peacekeeping forces of the Organization to Kazakhstan to control fresh violence that erupted in Kazakhstan’s main city of Almaty on Thursday.

Police in Almaty said they had killed dozens of rioters overnight into the early hours of Thursday morning. Authorities said at least 18 members of the security forces had died, including two found decapitated. More than 2,000 people were arrested.

Military personnel regained control of the main airport, seized earlier by protesters. Thursday evening saw renewed battles in Almaty’s main square, occupied alternately by troops and hundreds of protesters throughout much of the day.

Reuters reporters heard explosions and gunfire as military vehicles and scores of soldiers advanced, although the shooting stopped again after nightfall. TASS news agency quoted witnesses as saying people had been killed and wounded in the new gunfire.

The Russian deployment was a gamble by the Kremlin that rapid military force could secure its interests in the oil and uranium-producing Central Asian nation, by swiftly putting down the worst violence in Kazakhstan’s 30 years of independence.

Oil production at Kazakhstan’s top field Tengiz was reduced on Thursday, its operator Chevron (CVX.N) said, as some contractors disrupted train lines in support of the protests. Oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday and uranium has also jumped since the clashes erupted.

The internet was shut down across the country, disrupting bitcoin mining in one of the world’s biggest crypto miners and making it impossible to gauge the extent of the unrest.

But the violence was unprecedented in a state ruled firmly since Soviet times by leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81, who had held on to the reins despite stepping down three years ago as president.